Marco Rubio has won Puerto Rico’s Republican primary, CNN projects.
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Duchossois and Gidwitz were among a wave of main stream GOP donors who moved quickly to Rubio when Bush quit the race on February 20 after failing to meet expectations in Iowa, New Hampshire and SC. The primary did become important in June, 2008, when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were engaged in a down-to-the-wire fight for the Democratic nomination. Rubio was followed by businessman Donald Trump, Texas Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Until his win there yesterday, the only “W” in Rubio’s column was, however improbably, Minnesota. Rubio’s team says the campaign’s polling shows the race tightening, with Trump leading by single digits, slightly less than recent public polling.
And he may well win it, despite scoring only marginally better than Trump with the establishment, if Rubio fails to win Florida, his home-state, in the March 15 primaries. Puerto Ricans are USA citizens and the delegates they select count in the GOP primary as much as delegates from any state.
Puerto Rico has been facing economic crisis while the U.S. Congress has been debating what sort of assistance the U.S. government should provide. “There will be more delegates awarded in Florida than basically any other state that voted tonight combined”. “On to Cleveland!” Fortuño wrote on Twitter.
Rubio’s win comes after a disappointing performance yesterday on “Super Saturday”, where he picked up only 18 delegates.
For Aguilar, the Puerto Rico win was helpful, but Rubio needs more. The vote is scheduled for March 15.
It may have been his only win of the weekend, but the triumph raised new hopes that he could break through and appeal to the Central Florida Puerto Rican community, which numbers more than 300,000. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. speaks at a campaign stop, Wednesday, March 2, 2016, in Portland, Maine. Fortuño wrote on Twitter.
Clinton said she will do so when other candidates, including Republicans, agree to do the same. Instead, the battles are over the very identity of Puerto Rico itself, with Republicans favoring statehood, Democrats preferring to maintain the island’s commonwealth status, and a small group of people favoring independence. The large delegate haul offered by MI has proven the strongest candidate lure in the week after Super Tuesday. A day later, Rubio garnered 17 percent in the Kansas caucus, another third-place finish behind Cruz and Trump.
In Kansas, Rubio lost to Ted Cruz by 32 percent. Reports had forecast turnout would be low at just about 25,000 people down from about 130,000 Puerto Ricans turned out in 2012, overwhelmingly voting for the eventual nominee Mitt Romney, the Atlantic reported.
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MI and MS also hold primaries on Tuesday and Republicans in Hawaii will caucus.
